My Charter cable internet is increasing to $60 per month, as some sort of promotional rate is expiring. (The bastards!) Other than AT&T, which has attractive monthly rates but a large upfront installation fee (the bastards!), what other options are there in town for high speed internet?

I'm not interested in a bundle. I canned Charter cable tv, and am relying on over the air HD, which, unfortunately, has spotty reception, and is almost unwatchable in bad weather. However, I don't waste time watching, say, the Shawshank Redemption for the 15th time, so no tv still seems like a good thing for the time being. I And I don't need a landline phone.

I'd like to know the same thing. Non-package comparisons.We've had Charter for years now. About $45 for the 3Mbps (last speed test showed 3.20 download), although that is coupled with expanded basic cable.I'd like to know how AT&T DSL of a similar speed compares (w/out the U-Verse package). I think it was quoted at $35 for 3.5Mbps. But I don't have any experience with DSL. I know we'd have to get a new modem.

Depending on where you live, that Madison wireless service (what's it called?) might be an option. I've heard quality varies greatly depending on where you're at. Some people have a fantastic experience. For others, it's awful.

Peacetrain wrote:Have you told Charter you are gonna cancel unless they keep you at your current rate? They did it for me in the past.

Well, that worked! When you tell the overseas customer service rep that you want to quit, you get transferred to a different department which is much more helpful. I got my old rate back, in exchange for re-upping for 2 years. I'm not that worried about the 2-year contract period, as I've had Charter internet for 3 years with (mostly) no problems. I was thinking about switching to TDS, but they also want a 2-year contract, and I think I'm more comfortable with the devil that I know than the one that I don't. And the TDS speed available at the same price looked like it was slower. As for AT&T, I didn't do exhaustive research, but I think I determined that if all you want is internet, then they won't waive the outrageous installation fee. Could be wrong about that, though.

I also survived the temptation of reinstituting cable tv. I think hulu.com, Bongo video, and the dowtown library should be adequate. Oh, and books. Must read more books.

Ouch. Pay per use would kill me. I've got the TDS WiMax and I love it - nice and fast and cheap, but I do get an employee discount through my husband.

Edit - the cheapest WiMax option didn't require a contract when I bought it so you can try it out without the commitment. Once I decided I liked it (about a year later), I increased the speed. I'm getting a little less than what I pay for but it's fine.

Okay, so I re-upped with Charter, and switched to one of Charter's combo modem/wireless routers. My Mac mini is wired to the modem and my girlfriend's laptop gets wireless access. (Yeah, I know that renting a modem/router is probably a sucker deal, but we figured we'd try it for a spell, nix the rental and eventually buy a modem/router if things worked out.)

And things did work out for a while. But for the past 2 weekends, webpages refused to load. My computer's self diagnosis told me that my internet connection was a-okay. The Charter main number's important-message-recording told me, however, that service outages were being worked on in my area. However, a live Charter operator told me, essentially, not to believe the recording, ran a test and claimed my modem was fine. She advised me to contact Apple (sure, I'll get right on that). And a few hours later, things are back to normal and my internet connection is hunky dory again.

What the heck is going on? Anybody else have charter internet problems this morning or last weekend?

France is slightly smaller than Texas and holds roughly 62 million people, the population of Texas and California combined. If the US only had to wire up Texas for service to about 20% of our population, perhaps France would be entitled to a laugh.

As far as I am concerned, about the only thing France has to feel superior about is how much hotter their First Lady is than ours.

We've jumped back and forth between Charter and TDS for years, and Charter has always had more problems like the one you describe. Basically, restart your cable modem/router and it will usually fix the issue. We never have the issue with TDS, which is why we're switching back now that we qualify as "new" customers once more.